TLDR

• OKX said it will not rush into a U.S. IPO and will wait until it can deliver shareholder value.
• Haider Rafique said the company will only go public when it has confidence in long-term returns.
• OKX secured a strategic investment linked to Intercontinental Exchange that valued the company at $25 billion.
• Rafique said the firm intentionally priced the funding round conservatively despite strong revenue growth.
• He warned that poor stock performance by listed crypto firms has hurt the industry’s image.

OKX said it will not hurry into a U.S. IPO as it expands global operations. A senior executive linked the timing to shareholder returns and market performance. The company instead plans long-term growth across regions and tokenized finance.

OKX Ties IPO Plans to Shareholder Value and Market Timing

Haider Rafique said OKX will enter public markets only when it can deliver shareholder value. He spoke during the Digital Asset Summit in New York on Thursday. He said, “We will go public when we have confidence that we can give back shareholder value.”

He added that the firm will avoid listing without that confidence and clear performance targets. He said, “If we are not confident, there is no desire to go public.” He linked the approach to long-term planning and measured expansion.

OKX recently secured a strategic investment linked to Intercontinental Exchange, which owns the New York Stock Exchange. The deal valued OKX at $25 billion, according to Rafique. He said the company priced the round conservatively despite revenue growth.

He said, “We did underprice ourselves when you look at our revenue growth and licenses.” He added that the pricing decision was intentional and tied to long-term returns. He said the company focused on durability over short-term valuation gains.

Rafique also referenced poor public market performance by crypto firms. He said he bought one share in a major listing that later fell 50%. He said, “That’s not a good thing, and that’s bad for the category.”

He did not name the company during the discussion. However, Coinbase trades nearly 50% below its 2021 IPO price. Other crypto-linked stocks have also faced price swings since listing.

Global Expansion and Tokenized Assets Drive OKX Strategy

Rafique warned that careless listings could hurt the broader crypto sector. He said, “If we treat going public like we treated ICOs, we are doomed.” He compared rushed IPOs to the release of millions of tokens last year.

He said OKX plans to build the company over 20 or 30 years. He described the IPO decision as tied to durability rather than timing. He said the firm wants stable growth before entering public markets.

OKX operates across Europe, Latin America, Asia, and other regions. Rafique said the exchange ranks among top venues in crypto derivatives. He contrasted that reach with U.S.-focused rivals like Coinbase and Kraken.

He said international exchanges benefit from liquidity across time zones. He said, “Our unified order book becomes a strong competitive advantage.” He added that this structure supports trading during U.S. off-hours.

The company also targets tokenized financial assets and blockchain infrastructure. Its partnership with Intercontinental Exchange supports plans to bring equities and other assets onchain. Rafique said OKX will act as a distribution layer for those products.

Coinbase and Better Home & Finance announced a partnership on Thursday to offer token-backed mortgages. The product aims to expand access to homeownership while carrying the same Fannie Mae backing as other conforming mortgages.

Qualifying Americans can now pledge Bitcoin or USDC as collateral to fund their cash down payment, securing a standard conforming mortgage without liquidating their digital assets or potentially triggering a taxable event.

How It Works

Instead of needing to come up with cash for the down payment, borrowers pledge their crypto holdings as collateral for a separate loan that covers the down payment. The result is two loans at closing: a standard Fannie Mae mortgage on the home, and a second loan secured by the pledged crypto. Both loans share the same interest rate and amortization term, so the borrower manages a single combined monthly payment — a structure the companies describe as a market first.

The mortgages are designed in accordance with Fannie Mae guidelines and structured as standard conforming loans, which the companies say will enable significantly lower interest rates than those traditionally associated with token-backed loans.

No Margin Calls

If Bitcoin’s value drops, the mortgage terms remain unchanged, and no additional collateral is required. Market movements alone never trigger liquidation. Collateral is only at risk of liquidation in the event of a 60-day payment delinquency, similar to conforming mortgages.

For borrowers who pledge USDC, the collateral earns rewards that can help offset mortgage payments, enabling borrowers to reduce their net effective interest rate.

Coinbase One members who close a crypto-backed or regular mortgage through Better are eligible for a rebate worth 1% of the mortgage value, capped at $10,000, to cover closing costs and fees.

Why It Matters

For decades, the path to homeownership has required Americans to sell assets, liquidate investments, or withdraw retirement savings to cover a cash down payment — often triggering capital gains taxes or early withdrawal penalties. Market reports suggest 52 million American adults, or roughly 20% of the adult population, have owned digital assets.

Until now, borrowers have not been able to get credit for those assets in the traditional mortgage underwriting process without first liquidating them. Crypto-backed mortgages change this by allowing onchain wealth to translate into real-world access, expanding the pathways to homeownership while preserving long-term investment positions.

Better CEO Vishal Garg said the partnership “introduces a new pathway to realizing the American Dream for the 52 million Americans who own digital assets.”

The companies plan to expand eligible collateral types over time to include tokenized equities, fixed income, and other tokenized real estate assets, pending market and regulatory conditions.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.

Onchain perpetual futures linked to real-world commodities like precious metals and oil have surged in trading volume, signaling an investor rotation from altcoins to commodity-linked digital assets, according to a report published Thursday by digital asset bank Sygnum.

Trading volume for oil and precious metals perpetual futures markets on the Hyperliquid decentralized exchange (DEX) accounts for over 67% of HIP-3 contracts in Q1 2026, also known as “Builder-Deployed Perpetuals,” on the Hyperliquid platform, according to the report.

Previously, indexes accounted for about 90% of HIP-3 trading activity, but this has fallen to about 17%, according to Sygnum.

Weekend HIP-3 trading activity has surged by about 9x since January 2026, the report said, adding, “This is likely due to an uptick in crypto-native traders rotating into traditional assets as the broader altcoin market continues to underperform.” 

Lucas Schweiger, Sygnum digital asset ecosystem research lead, told Cointelegraph that this shift toward onchain digital assets is corroborated by a 250% year-over-year surge in the market cap of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).

There are about $23 billion in tokenized real-world assets that are traded on permissionless blockchain networks at the time of this writing, he said.

He also said that traders are treating altcoins as “leveraged BTC proxies.” Schweiger told Cointelegraph:

“That creates an environment where crypto-native capital naturally gravitates toward traditional asset perps that can be traded through the same wallet, using the same margin, just a different trade.”

The ongoing war in the Middle East and the disruption to energy infrastructure have caused oil prices to spike, while many altcoins are already down 80-90% below their all-time highs, according to Sygnum.

Related: Bitcoin leads, altcoin indicators drop to intriguing lows: Time for an altseason?

Recessionary concerns mount as Middle East war drags on

The war between the United States, Israel and Iran has disrupted critical energy infrastructure across the Middle East, causing global oil prices to spike to a high of about $120 per barrel.

Oil prices have whipsawed since the start of the conflict, rising or falling in response to comments made by US President Donald Trump and the Iranian government or ongoing developments in the geopolitical crisis.

If the price of oil remains above $100 per barrel in 2026, it will cause inflation to spike, according to Nic Puckrin, market analyst and founder of the Coinbureau media channel.

Traders are still pricing in a potential de-escalation or a quick end to the conflict, but Puckrin warned they may be in for a “rude awakening ”if the crisis persists and higher inflation derails any hopes of further interest rate cuts in 2026.

Since the start of the conflict on February 28, the odds of a US recession have surged to 36% on the Polymarket prediction market platform.

The US economy now has a near 50% chance of entering a recession in 2026, according to ratings agency Moody’s. 

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